Failure to Launch: Overcoming Obstacles to Implementation

Nothing is worse than being caught out at the last minute when a go-live is expected.

In the lead-up to the launch of a new implementation — be it internal innovation or external products and services — many crucial steps must be taken to ensure the implementation’s success.

Yet, too often financial service providers get right up to their launch date for a new implementation only to be hindered by an unexpected problem.

According to the Project Management Institute, though 93% of organizations use standardized, embedded project management practices to help reduce overall risk, 70% of them limit their use.

This highlights a core problem when it comes to implementations — the importance of reducing risk is understood but the actual practice of doing so falls victim to the desire to finish projects quickly.

In this article, we discuss why implementations fail in the financial services industry and the key challenges that make a successful implementation difficult. Plus, we explore how financial service providers can overcome these challenges and improve the success rate of their implementations.

Keep reading to learn how Exadel can provide your organization with the support and resources needed to implement with success and efficiency.

Why Do Implementations Fail in the Financial Services Industry?

Picture this:

Your IT department has been working for months on a digital transformation implementation. To remain competitive, you have set a tight deadline for your development team to meet.

The deadline arrives and your new digital infrastructure is about to go live — until a final quality assurance check identifies an issue with the digital identity verification process.

As it turns out, this error in the system runs deep and will take weeks of additional work, time, and resources to correct. Your launch date gets pushed back and your competitors pull ahead, attracting the customers you had hoped to win with your new digital offerings.

How could this have been avoided?

The reality of implementations in the financial services industry is that they are highly complex and require special attention to be paid to de-risking.

Some of the top complexities that can draw out an implementation process include:

• Compliance: A strong approach to regulatory compliance is crucial for financial service providers to remain in good legal standing. However, compliance activities can take time, especially if you do not already have a secure automated system in place to help you carry out your most essential compliance tasks.
• Risk Management: The scope of the risks associated with financial services — particularly in the digital finance and Fintech realms — is broad. When dealing with any sort of digital or tech-based implementation, you face not just normal project management risks (like budget and talent-related risks) but also the additional cyber-risks brought forth by advanced data and complex technologies (like artificial intelligence and machine learning).
• Maintenance: An implementation starts well before the official launch date and it can extend far past it as well. Many implementations (especially those dealing with digital technologies) require ongoing maintenance to remain fully functional and operational. If these maintenance needs are not addressed and properly planned for in the implementation stage, things can quickly fall apart.

Understanding the Obstacles to Implementation: 5 Key Challenges

Before you can begin improving your implementation process, you must first identify the core obstacles you are facing that can prevent a successful implementation.

Here are five key challenges to address when striving to achieve a successful implementation:

1. Too Much New Technology — Not Enough Training

The financial services sector has undergone a thorough digital evolution, leading many providers to invest in innovative technologies that can support and facilitate a digital infrastructure.

However, just investing in the technologies will only get you so far. Without the right training, your team may not be able to properly utilize new technologies to their full potential.

For example, let’s imagine a financial services provider is implementing a new digital platform that enables employees to work remotely. During this implementation, the company must consider not just the obvious digital risks associated with online or cloud-based platforms but also the risks of remote work.

This is a fairly commonplace implementation these days, as many financial services providers were driven to digital workplace solutions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As McKinsey & Company states:

Unloading a multitude of new technologies all at once onto your business team is one of the easiest ways to muddle an implementation process, leading ultimately to implementation failure.

2. Lack of Organizational Consensus

Going hand-in-hand with the challenge of insufficient staff training is a lack of organizational consensus.

When implementing change at the business level, it is critically important to ensure your business leaders are on the same page. This can include everyone from high-level executives to subject matter experts.

3. Inadequate Risk Assessments

On the surface level, financial service providers are always talking about de-risking.

Yet, on the deeper organizational level, many fail to actually carry out the necessary risk assessments needed for a successful implementation.

According to a 2021 McKinsey & Company report, an alarming 75% of companies have not conducted formal, holistic risk assessments for roughly 50% of their digital transformation initiatives.

The report further reveals that — though many companies do not conduct adequately broad risk assessments — the companies that do conduct the proper risk assessment experience a 75% increase in their overall understanding of risks coming from digital and analytical transformations.

This is a key data point, as the report uncovers that the number one pain point in risk management is “difficulty understanding risks generated by transformation.”

4. Siloed Data

As we have discussed, one of the key pillars to implementation success is business unity.

This unity is drastically hindered, however, when an organization maintains siloed and unconnected data across its business model.

Data plays a vital role in any implementation. With the right approach to data analytics, financial service providers can gain a much deeper understanding of their business’s risks. Plus, data helps enable more advanced risk management and detection systems as well.

In fact, 62% of financial leaders name “improving access to siloed, distributed data” as a top initiative for the next year, according to a March 2022 report from InterSystems. A further 54% of financial leaders name data silos as one of the “biggest barriers to innovation.”

5. Insufficient Support

The fifth and final challenge that financial service providers face is acquiring adequate support.

As we have discussed, implementations can go beyond the initial launch date, requiring ongoing support to remain fully functional and operate efficiently.

Yet, without proper planning, obtaining ongoing support can be difficult.

While development and implementation teams provide the necessary support initially, these teams must continue to work on future projects and implementations once the launch date has come to pass. This can leave a financial services company without the right support for maintaining its new implementation.

According to the InterSystems report discussed above, 85% of financial leaders state that their IT staff can spend up to 50% of their time helping other staff utilize data. These financial leaders also reveal that they struggle to implement tools that are accessible to non-technical users.

By embracing an approach that prioritizes ongoing support, a financial services company can better manage and maintain their implementations long-term.

Final Thoughts: Overcoming Implementation Obstacles in Financial Services

To carry out an implementation with success, financial service companies need an effective approach to risk management, implementation methods, control, and governance. With these factors in order, greater transparency can be achieved within an implementation process.

At Exadel, we provide the financial services sector with transformative business solutions for optimizing all aspects of implementation.

Key services we offer at Exadel include:

And the list goes on.

Through a partnership with Exadel, your company receives not just expert ongoing support but also a wide range of solutions that can be customized to your exact needs.

Contact the Exadel team today to find out more about how we can help improve your implementations.